Talk:Founding a new kingdom/@comment-209.116.220.114-20190921185308/@comment-45075715-20200220210014
Probably the easiest way for most is to be a vassal like suggested for a good while, then eventually rebel and keep the fiefs awarded to you. However, it's not the "easiest" for me! I hate playing as vassal. I find it so difficult sometimes because it gives me a moral dilemma. Sometimes when I join, an idiot marshal will request assistance and ask me to accompany him. I never like to decline any quest especially when someone really needs help, so I accompany him. Then this idiot Empire marshal jumps headfirst into a battle with a D'Shar lord thinking he outnumbers him without noticing (maybe his spotting skill is low) that there are all these other D'Shar lords in the somewhat distant vicinity who then join in. Soon enough I'm seeing a battle with my marshal and a few other lords totalling maybe 400 empire troops against 1,500+ D'Shar. Then I'm in a moral dilemma. Do I join with my measly 70 troops or so? That would be suicide! Almost certainly I'll be taken prisoner... but my faction lords need help! I gotta help... no, it's suicide! No, I can't abandon them! Then I end up reluctantly joining and, as expected, lose and get taken prisoner. Then I hate being a vassal! This sucks! Oh well, then I eventually get freed and slowly build up my troops again, then I notice Legatus after getting his ass kicked in that former D'Shar battle just got into a fight with a snake cult army with 50 of his troops against 800 snake cult... what do I do now?!!! Argh!!!!! I hate being a vassal! This is suicide given my morals! So I much prefer taking my sweet time roaming around factionless and actually without an army (just me and my companions) if I want a smooth game, then when I feel really powerful (high-level from killing random spawns, enterprises across the world) and ready, recruit decent troops (mostly ranged), find the weakest castle I can find on the map and take it. For that usually I can take a weaker one with just 50-80 mid-tier troops, like mostly empire crossbows and not even the top-tier empire armored crossbow (but for a smoother game recruit top-tier ranged troops from taverns and quality over quantity), maybe a small number of infantry with shields to detract enemy return fire standing in front of your archers (don't make them charge, just hold position to absorb enemy fire with their shields). To make it even smoother you might join a KO while factionless, rank up for a good while, and get some elite KO troops to add to your troops you're gonna use for siege. Then for the siege, just have your ranged units kill most of the enemies. With x-bows you usually don't have the problem of running out of ammo before every enemy (or close) is dead in sieges against smaller garrisons as you tend to find with bows during siege offense. If your x-bow units actually run out of bolts before all the castle defenders are dead, chances are that the bolts killed the strongest defenders already since the strongest units usually spawn first into battle. It should be easy enough at this point to F1-F3 your infantry and even x-bows behind them and mop up the remaining weak enemies. It also can help a lot to spread out your ranged units (F2-F4 repeatedly), because aside from making it harder for the enemy ranged to hit them (though this shouldn't be a problem with shielded infantry in front, since the AI aims at the nearest unit), it also helps them target different units so that they aren't wasting ammo aiming at the same enemies too much and firing more bolts than needed at the same target. Then the difficult part is defending your new kingdom. This can be difficult because without lots of right to rule (and I'm not even sure RtR helps that much), multiple factions can declare war on your new kingdom, and you will be playing lots of siege defense. But I find that easier than being a vassal because a siege defense gives you a nice defensive position where ammo is infinite. You load up on ranged and some infantry to protect the entrance in your new castle's garrison and you should be able to hold off sieges even when greatly outnumbered. If you are too outnumbered and outclassed, a cheesy way that I use a lot in this scenario is empty your garrison, let the enemy lords siege your territory with no resistance, and let them have it. Then wait for them to leave and take back your former territory. Doing that repeatedly will really mess up the fief's prosperity but you can fix that later. If you're super bold you can even successfully siege a weak castle just within the first in-game month and just within hours of playing the game. For that you load up on low-tier ranged units and maybe whatever super good units you can buy in tavern, spot the weakest castle you can (maybe one that was sieged but unsuccessfully with a very weakened garrison -- don't just look at the size of the garrison but what sort of troops it has inside) and just go for it. I have done it before with mostly low-tier x-bows and even archers and just a few elite troops I got from taverns and a very small party size.... although siege defense after is going to be a nightmare (but doable -- but it's gonna be frantic recruiting more units left and right ASAP to fill up your garrison while potentially having to repeatedly empty your garrison and abandon the castle, let enemy take the castle, retake castle -- yet I still find it "less suicidal" than being a vassal!). Also this is really cheesing the game and I haven't actually needed to do it hardly ever, not even much in these cases, but IIRC you can just have your ranged units fire all their arrows/bolts, retreat, then repeat the siege. Each time there will be fewer and fewer siege defenders. You might even be able to siege with just a measly 20-30 ranged in that case. I'm not 100% sure how this works since I've barely ever done it, if ever (haven't found need), but if it works the way I think it does, it should make sieges a breeze... fire all arrows, retreat, rinse and repeat until no defenders are left.